An Affaire in Athens (The Grand Tours of the Aristocracy #2)

Prologue

PROLOGUE

J uly 1840, near Girgenti, Sicily

From her vantage atop an ancient wall of stones not even two feet high, Diana regarded the design of a Roman mosaic with a grimace. “Another scene depicting a hunt,” she groused. “The Romans were obviously obsessed with killing deer.”

Below her, his knees pressed into a faded cushion, Viscount Jasper Henley glanced up and shrugged. “Deer and anything else from their daily life,” he responded, wiping away another layer of dirt from atop what had at one time been the floor of a Roman villa.

His efforts revealed more details of an opus vermiculatum —a mosaic of tiny colored glass tiles—including a tanned, well-muscled young man garbed in a knee-length tunic, his short, golden blond, wavy hair, outlined in dark brown stark against the white tile background. His bare legs displayed well-developed calves, and his feet were adorned with sandals. One hand gripped a bow, revealing him to be the hunter of the deer.

“Oh!” Diana stepped down to join her father, careful where she placed her booted feet before stooping over to examine the newly uncovered scene. “This man is quite detailed.”

Her father smirked at hearing her sudden interest in the mosaic. Given the size of the tiles used, the design had probably been created on a panel in a workshop by a Greek artisan and then installed when the villa was under construction. “Reminds me of the first time I uncovered one of these,” he murmured. “A few years before you were born. Your mother blushed when she saw the hunter.”

His daughter let out a rare giggle as she reached for the pad of paper she had left on the remains of a nearby wall. “Given her poor eyesight, Mother probably couldn’t even see it,” she said on a huff.

“She could see it rather clearly, actually,” Jasper countered. “By then I had found an oculist in Palermo who could make spectacles specifically for her,” he claimed. “She still blushes when she sees scantily clad males in artwork,” Jasper said, grinning.

“Father,” Diana scolded. “I’m not yet one-and-twenty,” she added. “Talk of scantily clad young men is supposed to wait until after I’ve reached my majority.” Pulling a pencil from the pocket of her breeches, she sat crossed-legged next to the hunter and quickly sketched the design.

“Don’t remind me,” he said with a grin. “And don’t let your mother see you sitting like that. She’ll scold you and me,” he warned.

“Yes, Father,” Diana said, not changing her position.

On any other day, she might have had to obey, but not on this day. Her younger brother, Michael, had completed another year of university at Oxford and had arrived by ship the night before with their older brother, Marcus, from London. Viscountess Marianne Henley hadn’t seen her sons in nearly a year and insisted they spend the day in her company as she shopped in Girgenti.

Setting aside the small brush he had been using to clear away dirt from the tiles, Jasper struggled to stand, groaning as he straightened his knees. He surveyed his day’s work.

The level of detail on this particular floor was far finer than the mosaic in the adjacent structure’s floor. In that one, the opus tessellatum was created using larger tesserae laid directly in place. The red, white, and gold geometric border surrounded a scene featuring the Three Graces from Greek mythology. Their mode of dress left little to the imagination when it came to the shape of their bodies, but he wasn’t about to mention it to his daughter.

“How can you be sure this mosaic is Roman and not Greek, like the one next door?” Diana asked, working to complete the sketch of the mosaic before the setting sun cast it in shadow. She would bring her paints in the morning to complete the illustration of the mosaic for use in her father’s next book. He planned to publish a compendium of his finds in the Greco-Roman quarter of the Valley of the Temples, one which would include illustrations of as many of the mosaics as possible.

Jasper knelt to brush away some dirt from the edge of the scene. “Almost all of the mosaics I’ve found in this area have been Roman,” he remarked. “I was lucky to stumble onto that one.” He motioned over his shoulder to indicate the mosaic featuring the Three Graces. “I was about to give up digging when I didn’t find anything at this level,” he explained, smoothing his gloved hand over the newly uncovered mosaic. “As you can see, that floor is much deeper down.”

“Another foot at least,” Diana agreed.

“Which means that house was probably built and occupied well before most of these in the Greco-Roman quarter. Perhaps several hundred years earlier.”

Concentrating on her drawing, Diana didn’t notice how her father scanned the area around them. A line of Greek temples and other structures stretched for over a mile to make up the Valley of the Temples. Her father’s work in the Greco-Roman quarter had been ongoing for the entire time he had been married to Marianne Slater, although the family had occasionally returned to London, usually in the spring, so he could see to his duties as a viscount.

When he didn’t speak for several minutes, Diana glanced up and noticed him staring in the direction of the Temple of Concordia. “What is it?” she asked, setting aside the drawing.

“I’m trying to decide how I’m going to tell your mother we’re moving on to another project,” he replied, his attention still on the ruins surrounding them.

“Another project?” she repeated. “Where?”

He left out his breath in a whoosh . “Greece. Athens, to be precise,” he said.

Diana blinked. “Athens?” From the way he had said the name of one of the oldest cities on the planet, she knew he was looking forward to the change.

“I’ve a patron who will pay for me to find evidence of a missing temple. The floor of it, at least,” he explained. “So I wrote to who I think might be in charge of the restoration efforts there and have secured his permission to begin the work next month.”

Her eyes rounded. “The Acropolis?”

When he nodded, she quickly stood and shouted with excitement. “Oh, Father. Congratulations!” she said as she embraced him.

Jasper chuckled softly. “Well, I’m glad to know at least one person in the family is happy to learn we’ll be moving on,” he said, mostly to himself.

She sobered. “The boys have been away at school more than they have been here,” she reminded him. “We may only have to convince Mother of how wonderful this will be.”

“She has so many friends here—not just Chiara,” he said, referring to the wife of his partner in archaeology, Dr. Darius Jones. The brother of a duke and a decade older than Jasper, Darius had retired from active archaeological work to concentrate on publishing books about his finds on Sicily and along Hadrian’s Wall in England. Although his original home had been in Cumbria, Darius had lived with Chiara in her villa near Girgenti for the past twenty years.

“Your mother could speak the language—mostly—from before I met her,” Jasper continued after his moment of reverie. “I rather doubt she’s going to like moving.”

“Mother makes friends easily,” Diana reasoned. “And she’ll be happy that the boys are done with school and living with us.”

Despite her excitement, Jasper merely nodded. “Still, I feel as if I need some really good news to help lessen the sting,” he said on a sigh. “Or a very expensive bauble.”

After a moment of thought, Diana’s eyes rounded. “I think I know what would help,” she said.

“Oh? Do share,” he encouraged.

“Take her to Rome for a holiday. Before you go to Athens.”

Jasper stared at his daughter for several seconds before he grinned. “I think you might have a very good idea there,” he whispered.

“The boys and I can go on ahead to Athens while you enjoy some time in the world’s most romantic city,” Diana went on, knowing full well her mother would object to leaving her grown children to fend for themselves. But if Jasper Henley had been invited—and his time there funded—that meant a house and staff would be arranged for their use. Given the situation in Athens, they would be paying witness to a city under post-war reconstruction. A city teaming with laborers and investors from all over the world.

A city where every dig of a shovel might reveal an ancient artifact. The remains of an agora. The foundations of an oikos .

“He was there,” Diana stated suddenly.

Jasper blinked and regarded his daughter with furrowed brows before he chuckled. “Pausanias?”

“Yes,” she responded, her manner guarded.

Sobering, he finally nodded. “I believe Athens is covered in his first volume,” he said, referring to the series of books the traveler had written as he documented his tour of Greece. Pausanias’s Description of Greece helped to tie ancient ruins mentioned in classical literature with the sort of archaeology Jasper was performing nearly sixteen-hundred years later.

The man’s observations and subsequent descriptions of ancient temples, towns, artworks, and the people he met along the way were a travelogue of sorts. Pausanias never mentioned for whom his books were intended. They surely weren’t meant as a guidebook for travelers—or those on their Grand Tours—since they didn’t mention where a visitor should seek accommodations or where they should eat or drink. However, the books allowed someone sitting in the comfort of their oikos to feel as if they had been along on the trip.

“Would he have left some sort of evidence he was there, do you suppose?” Diana asked, hope in her voice.

Jasper straightened as he considered her query. “How could he have not been?” he asked rhetorically. “You’ve obviously read his works. You know how detailed he is about the paintings and statuary.” When she didn’t appear convinced, he furrowed his brows. “You mean, did he leave his name carved in marble?” he asked. He scoffed but considered the possibility. “I rather doubt it, but then, I haven’t read all of his first book.”

Diana’s mouth dropped open. “You haven’t?”

Chuckling at seeing his daughter’s indignation, Jasper shook his head. “I learned about him, of course. I know there are ten or eleven volumes of his book. But I have not read more than the passages having to do with my own research,” he explained.

“What if he did? Leave behind some sort of clue that he had been somewhere?”

Jasper’s brows furrowed. “Well, I would think his books would be enough evidence of his having visited a place,” he murmured. His eyes suddenly rounded. “Are you referring to graffito?” he asked. “You think he might have carved his name into marble to indicate he had been there? As some sort of… marker?” His face screwed into a grimace. “No.” His expression softening somewhat, he added, “Well, it’s unlikely.”

“But not impossible?” she pressed.

He finally shrugged. “It’s possible,” he finally hedged. When his daughter displayed a grin of satisfaction, he shook his head. “But, please, if you don’t find evidence of it, don’t feel as if you failed,” he warned.

Diana’s shoulders dropped. “What are you saying?”

“I can see you are determined to prove your point… and it’s a good one,” he replied. “There are many a traveler who have left their marks in temples and on ancient artifacts all over the world. It doesn’t mean Pausanias did so, or that someone else did it on his behalf, though.”

Spreading her hands out to indicate the hundreds of Greco-Roman house foundations spread out before her, Diana said, “Have you ever felt as if you failed?”

He shook his head. “No, but then I always knew we would find evidence of Greek and Roman villas here,” he said, pointing to the Temple of Concordia in the distance. “Had we not…” He shook his head. “We would have simply dug in another place, because we knew they had to have lived somewhere.”

Considering her father’s words, Diana angled her head to one side. “Since Pausanias wrote of Athens in Volume One—he described the temples on the Acropolis?—”

“Did he?”

She blinked. “He did.”

“Then we know he was there,” he said with a shrug. “But it doesn’t mean he left behind any markings to indicate he was there.”

“True,” Diana hedged.

“But you intend to look?”

She nodded.

Jasper sighed. “All right. I’ll send word ahead. See if we can arrange permission for you to start work prior to my arrival,” he murmured. “But be sure to document anyone else you might find leaving behind their mark,” he instructed. “Someone else you might encounter along the way. You may find something—or someone—far more important in your search.”

Diana considered her father’s words and finally nodded. “I’ll keep an open mind,” she promised.

“That’s my girl,” he said, affording her a grin of satisfaction.